In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Farmers’ Improvement Society (FIS) worked to help poor farmers escape the cycle of debt caused by the share cropping and credit system which developed in the wake of the Civil War. Although the abolition of slavery represented a great step forward after the Civil War, life for many African Americans did not immediately improve. After emancipation, a large portion of freedmen and freedwomen remained at the plantations they had lived on for years, taking on new roles as tenant farmers or sharecroppers. These forms of work became, in many ways, a new form of slavery. Both sharecropping and tenant farming involved a landowner renting a portion of their land to a farmer. Each year, the landowner claimed a portion of the farmer’s crop as rent. The farmer had to purchase tools, seeds, and other provisions, either from the landlord at the cost of a high share of the crop, or from a merchant on credit. The harvested crop would then be given to the landlord for rent and to the merchant to settle any outstanding debt. Problems often arose when the farmer had a bad harvest. The landlord charged the same portion each year, regardless of the amount brought in during the harvest. This often left farmers without enough crop to pay merchants back. This system created a cycle of debt and made it nearly impossible for people to leave sharecropping or tenant farming because they were never able to make enough money to go elsewhere. Robert Lloyd Smith, who married Ruby Cobb and was a part of the great Waco Smith-Cobb family, was living in Oakland, Texas, when he decided to combat the exploitation of black farmers through this unjust agricultural system. Smith witnessed first-hand the suffering of African Americans trapped in institutionalized poverty in Oakland, and in 1889, he created the Village Improvement Society (VIS) as a solution. The VIS focused upon helping black people improve the aesthetics of the areas of town in which they lived. In 1891, Smith restructured the VIS into the Farmers’ Improvement Society in order to focus on bettering farmers’ lives and ending the cycle of poverty. FIS set out to put a stop to sharecropping and tenant farming by encouraging farm ownership and the use of cash purchases instead of credit buying. The organization also provided health benefits to members, held agricultural fairs to demonstrate techniques, and even opened an agricultural college in Wolfe City, Texas, in 1906. The society became very popular among African American farmers, and by 1909, had grown to about 21,000 members across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. In 1912, the society’s members owned 75,000 acres of land valued at over $1 million. In 1908, FIS opened the Farmer’s Improvement Bank in Waco in order to solve the issue of farmers needing tools and provisions before being paid once a year at harvest. The Farmers’ Improvement Bank—located at 109 Bridge Street—provided farmers with low-interest alternatives to outside banks’ steep rates. Smith encouraged society members to hold their savings at the bank, and the local FIS offices were located above it. The bank continued to operate until the Great Depression lowered cotton prices drastically, resulting in most depositors withdrawing their money. The bank ultimately failed in September of 1930. Despite the popularity of the organization among black farmers, the Great Depression took a heavy toll upon FIS, and it weakened as more farmers left for major cities to find jobs. Throughout the 1930s, the society lost much of its membership and had to take out loans to pay benefits owed to remaining members. R. L. Smith and his wife Ruby Cobb worked to keep the association afloat, but Smith’s death in 1942 spelled the end of the society. After nearly half a century of working to elevate the status of African Americans in Texas, the Farmers’ Improvement Society ceased operations.
]]>Dan “Uncle Dan” McLennan was born in 1849 as a slave to Neil McLennan in what would a year later become known as McLennan County, named for his master. Uncle Dan became a beloved member of not only the McLennan family but of the Waco community as well. He is best remembered for his fiddle playing, carrying his instrument around town with him in a flour sack.
Life on the frontier provided a variety of challenges for Uncle Dan and his family. Uncle Dan’s father, Alf, also lived as a slave of the McLennan family and lost his ear when Native Americans attacked the McLennan farm. Uncle Dan himself, living as a slave in the backwoods of Texas, experienced several encounters with Indians, though all peaceful. As a boy, he learned to fish as well as hunt squirrels, raccoons, possums, and even deer, helping the family survive on the frontier.
Even after gaining his freedom at the end of the Civil War, Dan remained closely connected to the McLennan family. He was especially loyal to Catherine McLennan Davis, the daughter of Neil McLennan. According to Uncle Dan’s daughter, Mrs. Davis took Dan under her wing, becoming a mother of sorts to him. Catherine taught him to read and write, a rare skill for a born slave. In 1870, on Catherine’s farm, Dan married Ann, who would come to be known as Aunt Ann. They had twelve children, six boys and six girls, in their fifty years of marriage.
On a few occasions, Dan went on cattle drives with the McLennan/Davis family. He rode up to Kansas, bringing cattle down with him. Though he worked for a time on Davis land, Dan became a successful farmer in his own right, working his own farm. The family grew subsistence crops to live off of, as well as cash crops such as cotton.
Living in China Spring, Uncle Dan and his family frequently made the slow journey to Waco by horse-pulled wagon. Often the family would return home the same day, leaving at sunset and finding their way back in the dark. Several of Dan’s family members lived in Waco, and on occasion the family stayed overnight with one of his brothers who owned a saloon in town. In Waco, Uncle Dan was in high demand due to his great talent for fiddling. He often found himself hired by white families to play at picnics, reunions, and other celebrations. These festivities were large, all-day affairs, complete with music, singing, dancing, and piles of food. Sometimes Dan’s sons, also musically inclined, would accompany him, playing guitar alongside his fiddling.
Uncle Dan died in 1919 at the age of seventy-one. During his lifetime, he witnessed a monumental amount of change. Waco and McLennan County were founded, and Waco blossomed from a village into a thriving city with nearly forty thousand residents. Born a slave, he experienced emancipation, dying a free man. He lived during a time of great transformation and the strife which came with it. Though a great deal of racial violence and tensions occurred during his lifetime, he was much loved by both whites and blacks in Waco and McLennan County. Uncle Dan and Aunt Ann are buried in unmarked, concrete-covered graves in a corner of the L. R. Davis Cemetery (as marked on the Waco History map) in China Spring.
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]]>An unincorporated township north of Waco, Elm Mott has remained a small but thriving community since its founding in 1872. Two of Elm Mott’s earliest settlers, Louis Bishop Christian and Edward M. Long, described the area as a wilderness or “an earthly Eden” when they first arrived. Both came to the sparsely populated region known at that time as Geneva just north of Waco Village after serving in the Civil War. When the community applied for a post office several years later on November 8, 1872, the area’s name changed to Elm Mott in order to avoid confusion, as there was already another Texas town bearing the name Geneva. Local residents selected Elm Mott because of a nearby elm grove. William C. Griffin served as the first postmaster, and the post office operated until November 11, 1873. It was reestablished May 12, 1876, with W. A. Miller as postmaster. Throughout its years of operation, the post office was housed in businesses around the area including several local stores and a bank. For many years, children attended school in a one-room log cabin in Lewis Christian’s pasture, where one teacher taught all grades. In 1876, workers completed construction on a building named Union Grove to be used by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Missionary Baptist Church, and the State of Texas for a public school. In 1920, J. D. Long gifted land for a new school. A two-story building was erected at the site. In 1938, the second story of the building was turned into a gym and auditorium. The community truly began to grow when the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas railroad (M-K-T) laid tracks from Hillsboro to Taylor in 1881, passing through Elm Mott. The depot came to stand as a center of commerce for the area. In the decade following the arrival of the railway, the population tripled and the settlement boasted a hotel, a gristmill and gin, two general stores, and multiple churches. The population continued to grow and in 1921, a private bank opened in Elm Mott. However, state examiners closed it in 1926 after a previous year’s drought kept area farmers from repaying their loans. Another rail line passed through Elm Mott after Mary E. Thomas deeded land to the Northern and Texas Central Railroad Company on October 28, 1879. The track was laid to Ross, Texas, and renamed the Waco & Northwestern Company. M-K-T unsuccessfully attempted to purchase the line, later choosing to build its own line in the region. On April 11, 1929, Waco & Northwestern abandoned its line. In 1913 an interurban line from Dallas was completed, passing through Elm Mott on the way to Waco. The line ran parallel to the M-K-T on the west side of Elm Mott and provided citizens with convenient and economical transportation throughout the state. The interurban operated until December 31, 1948, when the Texas Electric Railway ceased operations. The second half of the twentieth century brought a number of changes to Elm Mott. Beginning in the 1940s, the government established plans to renovated and upgrade US Highway 81. Initially, residents hoped this would spur the growth of the already expanding population, leading to Elm Mott’s incorporation as a town. Unfortunately, the expansion of the highway in the 1950s forced many Elm Mott residents to vacate homes and relocate their businesses, in turn resulting in a sharp decline in the community’s population. Around that same time, officials combined Elm Mott Independent School District and the Lakeview Independent School District to form the Connally Consolidated Independent School District. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Elm Mott’s population began to increase again. Though the community remains small today, Elm Mott continues to stand today as integral part of McLennan County.
]]>A forerunner of Baylor University, Waco University served as one of the earliest and most influential institutions of higher learning following the founding of Waco Village in 1849.
When Waco incorporated in 1856, Baptists already held a significant presence in the small town. Seeking to establish a preparatory school for the provision of education for young Baptist men, First Baptist congregants banded together with the Trinity River Baptist Association in 1856 to create Trinity River Male High School, later called Trinity River Classical School. The small school held its first classes in 1857 in temporary quarters at First Baptist Church on Fourth Street. Hoping to expand the reach of the school, trustees purchased a 7 ½-acre tract of land south of the city plat between Fifth and Sixth Streets in 1859. With assistance from the local community, the school constructed two large brick buildings.
The year 1860 brought a series of new changes to the school, beginning with the formation of Waco Baptist Association, a voluntary group of nine Baptist churches organized to provide support to the local Baptist community. Taking control of the school from Trinity River Baptist Association, the Waco group renamed the institution Waco Classical School.
In 1861 a bitter dispute at Baylor University, still located in Independence, concerning teaching methodology and a coeducational dance brought former and future Baylor president Rufus Burleson and four new faculty members to Waco Classical School. Following the resignation of school head John C. West, trustees offered Burleson the presidency. Burleson adjusted the scope of the school and in September of that same year, it reopened as all-male Waco University.
Tuition at the Waco school ranged from ten to twenty dollars throughout the university’s years of operation, although the children of poor ministers and young men in training to become preachers often received their education for free. Budgetary concerns, a constant concern for the short-lived university, were underscored by large numbers of young men enrolling in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.
Enrollment increased and coursework expanded at the university in the years following the Civil War, aided by the addition of a female department in 1866. Although one of the first coeducational universities in the nation, classes remained segregated by gender.
The growing Waco school soon began to compete with Baylor University for students and the two universities, supported by separate Baptist associations, coexisted for several years. However, the growth of Waco, bolstered by the recent arrival of the railway, signaled the gradual decline of Baylor in Independence. When the general and state associations which supported the two universities consolidated to form The Baptist General Convention of Texas, it was decided to consolidate Waco University and Baylor University in Waco, utilizing Baylor’s name.
Waco University held its last classes in the spring of 1886, although Baylor retained many of the university’s policies, course offerings, and faculty for many years after the consolidation. As the Baylor campus expanded, the former Waco University structure was transitioned into a dormitory, and later phased out completely.
Today, Waco University’s contribution to educational life in the city is lived out through the operations of Baylor University.
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]]>For nearly half a century, cotton reigned as king of Waco's economy, establishing the once small frontier town as a thriving urban center known throughout the country.
The area later named Waco held a long history of agricultural pursuits tracing back to the Waco Indians' farming of crops such as melons, pumpkins, lima beans, and corn. Cotton farming and plantation culture arrived in Waco along with the first white settlers of McLennan County. Initially hesitant to plant crops in the black soil found in Central Texas, these settlers soon found the alluvial soil of the Brazos Valley and blackland prairie ideal for growing cotton.
Prior to the Civil War, cotton production in McLennan County remained relatively small. Without a means to transport the product with ease throughout the country, there was little reason to produce large amounts of cotton. Additionally, although farmers sought to recreate southern plantation life in Waco, legal restrictions placed on the number of slaves a landlord could bring into Texas prevented large-scale plantations from developing.
Cotton production slowed with the dawn of the Civil War as most Wacoans, supporting secession, left to fight. The price of cotton fell and shipments to Europe stopped completely when the Union blocked established trade routes out of the South. Yet this setback ultimately turned into Waco's first step toward industrialization when, during his search to secure passage for the crop, John Baylis Earle acquired equipment for a cotton mill in England, disassembled it, and smuggled it into Waco via Mexico. The new mill freed up considerable time for women who had previously spent hours sewing and spinning cotton.
The defeat of the South in 1865 and subsequent emancipation of slaves completely restructured plantation life. Although some freedmen left Waco, many remained in the area in altered relationships with their former owners. The large number of people desiring to farm a limited amount of land led to a new hierarchy. Unable to pay all of their former slaves a fair wage, landowners rented pieces of land to tenants and sharecroppers in exchange for a portion of the crop and profit at the end of the growing season.
The cotton industry industrialized and grew considerably in Waco during this period immediately following the Civil War. The construction of the Waco Suspension Bridge and arrival of the Waco Tap Railroad in 1870 increased the number of people and goods entering and departing the city. Waco's cotton market boomed, and by 1885, the city became known as the largest inland cotton market in Texas. When a second railroad connection arrived, it was named the Cotton Belt Route in honor of the large market to which it primarily catered.
Life in Waco came to revolve around the crop which had earned the town the name of King Cotton. Bankers loaned money against cotton crops, and the city economy boomed along with farmers' prosperity. Brokers from other states and nations opened offices in the city. Each fall, farmers from the surrounding counties arrived in the town square at daybreak to display bales for classification and sale. In 1894, the city instituted the grand annual festival named the Cotton Palace Exposition in order to honor and celebrate the central role of the crop in the local economy.
By the turn of the twentieth century, however, the cotton industry reached its peak and was already beginning a steady decline, largely due to the diversification of agriculture as well as the depletion of soil nutrients. Although no longer the enormous market force it once represented, cotton continued to play an important role in Waco's economy throughout the twentieth century, with small numbers of farmers growing cotton and local merchants continuing to offer rewards for the first bale of cotton each season. Today, small cotton farms can be seen in the countryside surrounding the city, and the legacy of the crop which once made Waco a center of the South is visible in landmarks around town such as Cottonland Castle, the silos of the old cotton oil mill, and the site of the Texas Cotton Palace.
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]]>Built when fewer than seven hundred citizens lived in Waco Village proper, the Earle-Napier-Kinnard House has truly been a witness to history.
In 1856, Thomas Harrison and John Baylis Earle purchased a double log cabin on five acres for $1,000. Two years later, Earle built a two-room brick home on three of the acres and moved into the residence with his wife Emma. The couple had their first three children in the home but eventually relocated to East Waco in order to be closer to the factory Earle established to manufacture uniforms for Confederate soldiers. In 1866, H. S. Morgan purchased the property for $4,000 in gold specie and started work on a two-story addition to the original building. By May of 1868, the house had new owners in Dr. John Smith Napier and his wife Mary, who acquired the property for $5,000. The Napiers took on the expansion project and enlarged the house to its present form. Unfortunately, Mary Napier did not get to enjoy the home for long as she passed away in April of 1872. Dr. Napier lived in the home until his death in 1889. Prior to her father’s death, Sallie Napier, one of the seven Napier children, took up residence in the family home with her husband Rev. David Cannon Kinnard. The Kinnards frequently entertained visiting preachers, leading the residence to be nicknamed “the House of Pastors” among their contemporaries. Mary, the eldest Kinnard daughter, moved into the house when she was five years old and lived there until her death at age ninety-four in 1957.
The house is built in the Greek Revival style, as evidenced by its white, pillared porticos. Its exterior is comprised of pale pink handmade brick from a local kiln. The porch has an ornamental wooden banister, which resembles ironwork, on both the upper and lower galleries. The windows are nicely adorned with cypress shutters.
In January of 1958, Frances Duncan Nalle purchased the house. Nalle initially oversaw the refurbishment of the residence. The restoration included enclosing the latticed back porch and adding two bathrooms over that porch on the second floor. Although the above efforts enabled the house to return to its former state, much of the property’s original acreage was lost to the construction of Interstate Highway 35. However, the above did not diminish the historic value of the house nor its appeal to the broader community. For a time the home served as a clubhouse for Baylor faculty social gatherings. A newlywed Baylor undergraduate couple, Kathleen and Herman Massey, lived there with full period furniture as onsite curators in the 1960s. Then in 1967, Nalle endowed the house and presented it, with all its antique furnishings, to the Waco Perpetual Growth Foundation.
On March 11, 1971, the National Register of Historic Places added the Earle-Napier-Kinnard House to its list of properties. It had the honor of being the third structure from Waco to be included, preceded only by the Suspension Bridge and Fort House.
The Earle-Napier-Kinnard House is now a public museum run by Historic Waco Foundation, placing it in the unique position of being a testament to Waco’s past while remaining a witness to the city’s future development.
For tours of the Earle-Napier-Kinnard House, or for more information about Historic Waco Foundation, visit www.historicwaco.org.
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